"I was in Bein Hoa one time, man," Tom said turning to me. "You ever been in Bien Hoa?" I said yeah.

"Yeah, well I was waiting to go home and I had to take a shit and walked out to the shitter and a rocket hit the hootch I was staying in and killed four guys; imagine that man? I mean, it was a six seater, or something, and I laid down on the floor and then walked back and there were all these fuckers screaming and four of them dead and my suitcase, the one right back there, had holes in it and it still won't close right. Imagine that, man? I have a friend who's very religious, you know, and he says God had to have been with me."

Then he told me how he and this other guy had tried to start a restaurant in Nashua, New Hampshire, and lost all their money because there was another guy in the town who didn't want the competition and lowered his prices until he drove them out of business, lowered the prices until he was practically giving the food away, did I understand? I said I thought so and that God hadn't been with him that time, in the restaurant that is, and we both laughed.

Chuck said he just didn't know if he could handle going to Fort Dix, he was afraid they would find out about his habit and put him in jail, and everybody told him to shut the fuck up and Chris asked him to point out the girl with the ass hole because we were pulling into New York now.

Tom turned to me after talking to Chuck quietly for a few more moments and asked what he should do, huh? You were the Captain, he said, you should know what to say to the kid. "All I want to do is to get to Dix, process back into the Army and get my ass to a permanent duty station so I can see my wife and daughter. And I gotta put up with this bullshit. Jesus."

Tom said that Chuck had told him about going into the recruiting sergeant's office wasted on heroin and the sergeant knew it and told Chuck not to say anything when he took the physical, and also when he got to Fort Dix. Tom said that he knew about another guy who had high blood pressure and couldn't pass the test and the sergeant gave him pills to take so that he could pass it. Then Tom said again how he was mad at being stuck with these guys and started swearing to himself.

Then Chuck said he was sorry and hoped he wouldn't cause Tom any trouble and would Tom give him time enough to get away. Tom wouldn't answer him, only sat there shaking his head and looking out the window. We were in the tunnel under the East River now, pulling into Penn Station and the train stopped. It was dark in the tunnel and the fumes from all the trains lingered there so it smelled very bad inside the train and David kept asking what the smell was and the electricity from the subway trains kept flickering in the dark and David wanted to know what that was too. Tom told them all to pick up 'the garbage they had left around and put it someplace--all the beer cans and sandwich wrappers. Then he turned to me and asked me what I was in New York for, he had forgotten to ask me before, he said. To write my thesis, just to hole up and write it, I said. I told him it was about the way people reacted to the French Revolution and he asked me who. I said Jefferson and Adams and those guys and he said oh. Then we got out on the platform and picked up our baggage and I saw the holes in the suitcase for myself. Tom and I shook hands and I wished him luck and he said the same to you. I asked Chuck what he was going to do and he said he didn't know that his head was too fucked up; I told Chris' good luck in Korea and David said he was going to Frankfurt, Germany and wanted to learn to ski. I never found out anything about the last guy, he was very quiet.